Interestingly, even General Motors tried to cash in on the slogan, conceding that it lost the buzz war to Chrysler despite outspending its Big Three brethren in the big game.

Marketing Chief Joel Ewanick told the Wall Street Journal that GM bought "Imported from Detroit" through Google's Adwords division, ensuring that any searches for the phrase would return a paid link to GM.

Feb. 14, WSJ.com: "I'm sitting there watching to see if anybody is going to be really good and take off. (The ad) comes on and I say, 'Yeah, we’re getting our butts kicked, so let’s go,'" Mr. Ewanick said.

Ewanick said GM got more than 54 million page views after the Super Bowl, which featured a slew of spots from Chevrolet, including one with the cast of the television show Glee. He said GM’s strategy was to stick to more low-key ads in an effort to keep the focus on its vehicles.

GM also bought other search phrases, including "Darth Vader," an attempt to capitalize on another must see spot, a Volkswagen ad with a kid dressed as Darth Vader.

"We did the right thing to ride the wave," Ewanick said. "Someone said, 'Gee, they did better than us.' But we did better because of them."

Chrysler scored a hit with "Imported from Detroit." It's a distinctive slogan, a source of local pride and undoubtedly will sell T-shirts. But the bigger question, of course, is whether it will move metal. Did we mention the company is also selling the Chrysler 200?